Summertime Sports Chowdah Update for June 27- Miller Repels Marauding Pirates; Dodgers Go For (Chapter) 11; Tim Thomas- More Hardware Than True Value

RED SOX: Well, aside from that 10-run inning against San Diego last week it's been a pretty forgettable week for the Red Sox. Heading into Sunday afternoon's game against the Pirates, the Sox had managed to drop 4 in a row- the last two against San Diego at Fenway and the first two in the weekend series against Pittsburgh at PNC Park.

It was not the stuff of legends, and the Sox were helped out considerably by 4 errors from the Pirates in Sunday's game. PawSox callup Andy Miller went 6 innings, giving up five scattered hits and two runs while walking two and striking out four in what was actually his second start for Boston (he had no decision in last week's 14-5 romp over the San Diego Padres).

Jonathan Papelbon pitched the bottom of the 9th for his 14th save in 15 opportunities while Dustin Pedroia extended his hitting streak to 11 games, Adrian Gonzalez (still at 1B) raised his batting average to a league-best .361 and Miller is now 1-0 with a 3.09 ERA in the 4-2 win. Interestingly, all of Boston's runs came on either outs or errors on Sunday- another PawSox callup, LF Josh Reddick, had two sac flies, one of which resulted in an RBI.

Interestingly, the Pirates are now one game over .500- this is probably the latest in the season that they've had a record of .500 or better in recent years and just 4 games behind the NL-Central leading Brewers.

The Red Sox travel to the city of Brotherly Love for a 3-game series against the NL leading Philadelphia Phillies starting Tuesday night, with Josh Beckett (6-2; 1.84 ERA) getting the start against Cliff Lee (8-5; 2.87 ERA). First pitch will get underway at 7:05 PM ET and the game will be televised on NESN.

ELSEWHERE IN MLB: The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy on Monday. The move came after MLB rejected a lucrative contract extension between the club and FOX sports and while the owner is close to finalizing a nasty and protracted divorce.

Two of the Dodgers largest unsecured creditors include the now-retired Manny Ramierez ($21 million) and Andruw Jones ($11.1 million). The Chapter 11 filing at a bankruptcy court in Delaware lists anywhere between $500 million and $1 billion in assets and $100 million to $500 billion in liabilities.

Owner Frank McCourt said the filing was to ensure that the team could continue to meet payroll, sign players and continue paying vendors and stadium personnel while preventing MLB from taking full control of the club.


BOSTON BRUINS: To hardly anybody's surprise, Bruins goalie Tim Thomas was named the Vezina trophy winner (NHL's Goalie of the Year) at the NHL awards last week. The former Vermont Catamount also won the Vezina in 2009, making this the second time he has garnered the award. Thomas was first on 26 of 30 ballots among votes submitted by NHL general managers.

Thomas conceded that his goaltending was far from perfect, even with an NHL-leading .938 save percentage.

"I don't think that my style's the perfect style -- that's for sure," Thomas said. "But it works for me.

"I'm kind of like the redneck of goaltending that duct-tapes everything together to fix it."

Thomas also won the Conn Smythe trophy (above) for the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup finals in the 7 game series against Vancouver.

Stanley Cup of Sports Chowdah- THE WAIT IS OVAH, LORD STANLEY'S CUP HEADS BACK TO THE HUB!! Beckett's 1-Hit Wonder; LeBron LeGone in 6 Game NBA Final

	The Standells - Dirty Water .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

STANLEY CUP FINAL- GAME 7: The best kind of game there is! Although with Vancouver being undefeated at home in the Stanley Cup finals, many prognosticators had already given the cup to the Canucks. I was confident about the Bruins chances on Wednesday night thanks to a very unconventional indicator that worked out pretty well in Boston's favor when a certain Boston team was playing a clinching game.

After Boston tied the series and forced a decisive Game 7 with a 5-2 win at Boston's TD Banknorth Garden on Monday night, the Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks would go at it one more time on Wednesday night to see who would bring home the Stanley Cup.

The Bruins got out to the early lead late in the first with a goal from center Patrice Bergeron, and never looked back from there. Brad Marchand would get an even strength goal at just over 12 minutes into the second period before Bergeron tallied a shorthanded goal to make it a 3-0 Boston lead.

Marchand finished off the scoring with an empty-netter late in the 3rd after Vancouver pulled goaltender Roberto Luongo for an extra attacker with just under 3 minutes to go in regulation to put the game away by a 4-0 final.

Bruins goalie and former Vermont Catamount Tim Thomas turned away all 37 shots faced in Game 7, while Vanucks netminder Roberto Luongo gave up 3 goals in his evening's work. The shuout comes despite the Canucks outshooting the Bruins by a 37-20 margin.

Thomas, who started his NHL career with the now-defunct Quebec Nordiques, was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy as MVP of the Stanley Cup finals and is considered a favorite for the Vezina Trophy (the NHL's best goaltender) for the 2010-2011 season. The Game 7 win was his 4th-ever career playoff shutout.



43 year old winger Mark Recchi also took the occasion of hoisting the Stanley Cup to announce his retirement after Game 7. Recchi had earlier indicated that he would like to go out on top as a finale to his 22 year NHL career. Recchi was acquired by the Bruins in a March 2009 trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning and re-joined the club by agreeing to a series of 1-year contracts. Recchi had 3 goals and 4 assists in the Stanley Cup Finals this year.

While Nathan Horton wasn't cleared to play, he travelled with the team to Vancouver and was in uniform for the presentation of the Stanley Cup by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Sgt. D A Dorken of Canadian Forces Afghanistan showing his love for the Bruins circa 2007

[On a personal note, I cannot tell you how happy I am for the Bruins players, head coach Claude Julien, President Cam Neely and Bruins fans and alumni on both sides of the border who have been waiting nearly 40 years for this. Do any of you remember Ray Bourque being traded to Colorado for one last crack at a championship? It was absolutely the right call, but a damn shame he had to leave Boston to go out a winner. How about the Joe Thornton trade? Or the epic collapse against Philly last year? Fuhgeddaboutit- that shit is old news now!- NANESB!]

The win itself and the ceremonies afterward were a thing of beauty, but what happened outside wasn't.

Vancouver Sun- Photos

Unfortunately, almost as soon as the game was decided, Vancouver fans decided to express their displeasure with the outcome of Game 7 by torching cars, smashing shop windows, looting and clashing with police.

Riot police fired rubber bullets and flash bombs in downtown Vancouver Wednesday night to try to disperse angry rioters who set cars on fire and taunted police officers after the Canucks' 4-0 Stanley Cup final loss to the Boston Bruins.

Police declared the downtown fan zone area near the CBC building and the central post office a riot zone. Anyone not leaving the West Georgia Street area immediately could be arrested, they warned.

Police were using batons and also turned police dogs on the rioters, slowly pushing the crowd back along Georgia Street from Hamilton Street to Cambie Street.

Officers in riot gear were also trying to disperse a smaller crowd on Granville Street, about six blocks from the original riot scene.

Two police cars were set on fire in a parking lot on Cambie Street near one of the areas where police were being confronted by a few dozen people among the hundreds present who were throwing debris at officers.

There was a riot in the city of Vancouver during June 1994 under similar circumstances when the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to the New York Rangers.



RED SOX- While all eyes were seemingly on Vancouver tonight, Red Sox Bruins nation missed Josh Beckett throwing one hell of a gem down in Tampa tonight.

Josh Beckett threw a complete game one-hit shutout against Tampa Bay at Tropicana field on Wednesday night, allowing only a hit to Rays SS Reid Brignac. Run support came late for Beckett in the form of a Kevin Youkilis 3-run bomb that plated Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez. Beckett was pretty efficient on the night, throwing all of 97 pitches in his 9 innings of work, striking out 6 and walking none.

On Tuesday night, Rays starter James Shields went the distance in a complete game of his own, shutting out the Sox by a 4-0 margin, interrupting Boston's 9-game win streak. Thursday's rubber game will have Clay Buchholz [5-3; 3.59 ERA] up against David Price [7-5; 3.51 ERA]. First pitch is at 7:10 ET and the game will be televised on both NESN and the MLB network.



NBA: I'm a few days behind on this, but congratulations to the NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks, who stunned the Miami Heat with their win Sunday by a 105-95 margin to win the NBA Finals by a 4-2 margin. Dallas stunned the basketball world by sweeping the LA Lakers early in the playoffs and then dispatching the Oklahoma City Thunder in fairly short order.

Although he got off to a slow first half in Game 6, Mavs Forward Dirk Nowitzki would go on to be named NBA Finals MVP.

Sports Chowdah W/a Shot of 7 And 7: BRUINS WIN GAME 7, ADVANCE TO STANLEY CUP FINAL FOR FIRST TIME IN 21 YEARS; Oh Yea- The Red Sox Played Today, Too

Prince of Wales Trophy Presentation- Boston Bruins Photo

NHL: WOW! Remember when Game 7s DIDN'T live up to the hype? Didn't seem that long ago, did it?

This was such a hard series to call, with the B's shutting out the Lightning one game and allowing five unanswered goals in the next. As much as I wanted to be an insufferable douchenozzle and boldly predict a Boston win, I was genuinely uncertain about the possible outcome of the series. Both teams had eerily similar circumstances heading into the Eastern conference finals as well; finishing the regular season with 103 points, playing 7 games in the first round and then sweeping their next opponent in 4.

Credit where credit is due, Philly blogger Wyatt Earp totally called it earlier this week in the comments section. I was in denial due to Boston's fairly recent (and painful) history of Game 7 choke-itude that looked set to repeat itself as the Tampa Bay Lightning held off the Bruins to win by a 5-4 final and force a decisive Game 7 at the Garden in Boston on Friday night.

With that said, Game 7 got underway at the Garden on Friday night with the Vancouver Canucks awaiting the winner.

It seemed as though the Bruins had been peppering Lightning netminder Dwayne Roloson with shots on goal almost immediately. In fact, Roloson turned aside all 29 shots he faced in the first two periods while Tim Thomas stopped 17 shots on goal in the same timeframe to make it a scoreless game in the 3rd. After the way the first two periods had gone, it was hard to believe after the Bruins gave away a 3-0 lead in Game 4, but one was left with the feeling that whoever scored first would win Game 7.


Enter Nathan Horton, who tallied the series-winning goal in overtime of Game 7 against the Montreal Canadiens. And thanks to some superb defense and Tim Thomas between the pipes, Horton's tally would be the only goal of the evening. Thomas stopped all 24 shots he faced on Friday night while Roloson very much kept the Lightning in the contest, turning aside 37 of 38 shots faced.

Total penalty minutes in Game 7? Zero.

The shutout is Tim Thomas' second of the series (and third career postseason shutout) while Nathan Horton's game-winner was his 8th goal of the 2011 playoffs.

The Eastern Conference champions will next take on the Vancouver Canucks for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, BC at 8PM ET, 5PM PT on Wednesday, June 1st. The game will be broadcast on NBC.

MLB: After scoring 14 runs in back to back games (a 14-2 win to close out the series in Cleveland and a 14-1 thrashing of the Tigers to start the 4-game series at Detroit's Comerica Park), the Red Sox were held to a mere 6 runs on Friday night, with Boston getting on the board thanks to Jacoby Ellsbury coming home on a wild pitch from Tigers starter Rick Porcello in the 1st. Although Detroit would get out to a 2-1 lead, Boston would take the lead right back thanks to a huge 3rd inning that saw a solo homer from Ellsbury, a Kevin Youkilis 2-RBI double and a 2-run homer from Carl Crawford.

Venerable knuckleballer Tim Wakefield got the start for Boston and went 7 full innings, allowing two earned runs on five hits. Papelbon would give up a leadoff single to Victor Martinez in the bottom of the 9th followed by an RBI double off the bat of Jhonny Peralta, but would get the next 3 outs to close out the 6-3 Boston win.

Clay Buchholz (4-3; 3.30 ERA) will get the start for Saturday night's game while the Tigers have called up pitching prospect Andy Oliver (4-3; 3.31 ERA with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens this season) after starter Phil Coke went on the DL with an ankle injury earlier this week.

Granted it's not even Memorial Day, but the Red Sox have made their way into first place in the AL East with Friday night's win, one game ahead of the Yankees and a game and a half up on the Rays. Not bad after that horrendous 0-6 start that had Red Sox haters and fans alike getting ready to bury the 2011 Red Sox.